Harry Belafonte

Harry Belafonte (1 March 1927-), born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr., was an African-American singer-songwriter and Civil Rights movement activist. Born in Harlem, New York City to two biracial Jamaican parents, he served in the US Navy during World War II before becoming a theatre actor and club singer in the 1940s. During the 1950s, he helped to popularize the Caribbean "Calypso" musical style with an international audience, and, around the same time, he became a civil rights activist and one of Martin Luther King Jr.'s confidants. He went on to become a prominent civil rights and humanitarian activist, supporting the anti-Apartheid movement and USA for Africa, criticizing President George W. Bush's policies, and working with UNICEF and the ACLU. Belafonte was influenced by the communist views of his mentor Paul Robeson, and he backed John F. Kennedy's 1960 Democratic presidential bid, criticized US foreign policy durign the 1980s, befriended Cuban leader Fidel Castro, and supported Bernie Sanders during the 2016 presidential election.